THE TALK OF THE TOWN week to open Metreon, the biggest city- contained entertainment center in the world. The eighty-five-million-dollar complex, which was developed by Sony, will have fifteen theatres, an Imax screen, and what must surely be the world's longest and shiniest popcorn counter. Trying to outdo the locally Nobuyuki ldei \ \ "- ( beloved Exploratorium (and Disney World, too, it seems), the center will have a children's play area inspired by Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and an interactive attrac- tion based on "The Way Things Work," by David Macaula Then there are six shops (including the first Microsoft store), eight restaurants, and the Air- tight Garage, an "adventure zone" with oversized computer games that have 1 L " B ell d " d " H B 1 " names liKe a an s an yper ow. With about a month to go before Metreon's opening, the countdown clock in the office of the planners read, "26 days 16 hours 16 seconds." A "Qyote of the Day" was posted: "If you don't scale the mountain, you can't see the view." Having emerged from their cubicles, clusters of young organizers were dealing with opening-day ques- tions: Should there be an actual ribbon- cutting? (No.) Daytime fireworks? (Yes.) Five hundred racing pigeons to be released to circle the building? (Yes.) A class of preschool kids from the nearby Filipino Education Center to escort Mr. Nobuyuki Idei, Sony's Tokyo-based president and co-chief ex- ecutive officer, into the building? (Yes.) A few other questions: Was Mr. Idei's boss, Mr. Norio Ohga, Sony's chairman and C.E.O., coming from Tokyo? (Not until July.) Anything spe- cial about July? (Sony dealers from all over the world will be coming to San FrancIsco for a three-day Global Mar- keting Partners Conference.) Was Mr. Ohga excited about Metreon? (Defi- nitely. Mr. Ohga-who is said to be "more emotional" than Mr. Idei-is especially happy about the Where the Wild Things Are attraction, because he has a soft spot for Sendak's charac- ter Max.) On the site itself: various Sony"De- velopment" and "Operational" and "Managerial" executives wearing ID tags and hard hats were busy reminding workers that their motto was "Just Fin- ish!" and that their maxim was ' t this point, the enemy of good ideas is better ideas!" Someone noticed that a robot- named Melvin 100o-which was pro- grammed to greet visitors on their way into the Way Things Work attraction was in danger of not responding to children: Melvin couldn't bend down far enough to reach the short folks. In a flash, experts from Sony's Entertain- ment Technology Group were on the way to readjust Melvin 1000 in time to meet and greet and bow to Mr. Idei. -LILLIAN Ross GOOD NEIGHBORS DEPI Closing a chapter at the New York Public Library. fll THr: ; :: IIìF ""r shall Rose is not one of those builders who erect ugly high-rise apartment towers on Second Avenue so that they can get enough money to assure themselves of immortality by putting their name on a museum. Certainly Rose has made plenty of money, and he can talk depreciation and square footage and tax writeoffs with the best of them. But then he goes off and does something like help the N.A.A.C. Legal Defense Fund build a new head- quarters, or find a way for Central Syn- agogue to sell its air rights, or fig- ure out how the New York Public Library could build a new branch in the landmark B. Altman building and restore its extravagant Beaux-Arts main building at the same time. He is a real-estate developer who seems to have invented a new profession, as a kind of real-estate adviser in the pub- lic interest. 31 Rose is also unusual in the real- estate business because he appears not to have made any enemies in a cut- throat profession of exceedingly thin- skinned people. He appears to have a hand in everything in New York, but he never leaves fingerprints. He is now stepping down after his second stint as chairman of the New York Public Library. The other day, Rose, the sixty- two-year-old son of a furrier, said that he views his exalted presence in the land of Brooke Astor and Bill Blass with equal parts gratitude and bemuse- ment. "Some people make dresses, I make buildings," he said, sitting in his office on Madison Avenue. "It's a busi- ness. But I always wanted an interest- ing life, and for me the question was how could I have that." He went on, "For example, in the late seventies, I helped the New York City Bar Association, on Forty-fourth Street, which was wasting a whole building with library stacks. I showed them how we could put the books un- derneath the building, and sell the rest of the building for fourteen million dollars. It was like a Rubik's Cube, moving the spaces around." And then in 1981 Vartan Gregorian, the library's president, called to enlist Rose's help in figuring out how to deal with "the longest urinal in New York," as Grego- rian called Bryant Park before it was reconstructed. Rose ended up joining the board of the library, and by 1990 he was its chairman. Rose's wife, Jill, died of cancer in 1996; he had stepped down as chair- man of the library for the first time in 1995 to spend more time with her. . When Elizabeth Rohatyn, who suc- ceeded him, moved to Paris with her husband, Felix, the United States Am- bassador, Rose was called back. "The library never deaccessions anything, in- cluding old chairmen," he said. "They looked in the blue recycling bin and there I was." Even Rose's excessive humility may no longer be enough to protect his cherished privacy. Last year, his friends Don Hewitt and Marilyn Berger intro- duced him to their friend Candice Bergen, who had lost her husband, Louis Malle, just before Rose's wife died. Bergen and Rose have been to- gether ever since. -PAUL GOLDBERGER